Brace yourself: Charli XCX’s Wuthering Heights soundtrack isn’t the goth girl winter revolution you were promised—but is that a bad thing? Last November, Charli XCX dropped ‘House,’ the haunting lead single from her Wuthering Heights soundtrack. The track was a sonic departure from her 2024 club-anthem masterpiece, brat, trading glittering beats for a tormented, industrial soundscape. Think crumbling cliffside mansions, spectral cello strokes courtesy of Velvet Underground’s John Cale, and Charli’s own ghostly wails—a far cry from the euphoric bangers of Brat summer. Fans and critics alike scrambled to label this new direction: Wuthering Heights winter? Yearning winter? Goth girl winter? But here’s where it gets controversial: for all the hype, Wuthering Heights feels less like a bold new era and more like a nostalgic echo of Charli’s past. Is this a step backward, or a deliberate creative choice?
Charli herself framed Wuthering Heights as a reaction to the burnout of brat’s relentless success. On her Substack, she candidly described feeling creatively drained after months of touring and performing the same songs. Enter Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Gothic classic, which Charli seized as a lifeline. What started as a request for a song or two blossomed into a full album, crafted alongside collaborator Finn Keane (Easyfun). But while the project promised a dark, enduring romance to rival Cathy and Heathcliff’s, the album often feels like a patchwork of Charli’s earlier work. Tracks like ‘My Reminder’ eerily echo her 2013 debut, True Romance, while others struggle to blend industrial and orchestral elements with her signature art-pop flair. And this is the part most people miss: Wuthering Heights isn’t trying to redefine pop—it’s a soundtrack, bound by the constraints of Fennell’s film. Should we judge it by the same standards as Charli’s solo albums, or embrace it as a creative exercise?
That’s not to say the album lacks brilliance. ‘Always Everywhere’ is a lush, wistful standout, with Charli’s yearning vocals soaring over sweeping strings. ‘Altars’ is a masterclass in vocal drama, layering Auto-Tune, gravelly drawls, and raw emotion into a ballad that rivals ‘White Mercedes.’ But moments like these are overshadowed by generic alt-pop beats and underwhelming collaborations, like Sky Ferreira’s wasted potential on ‘Eyes of the World.’ Even the album’s closer, ‘Funny Mouth,’ co-written by Djo’s Joe Keery, feels like a glimpse of what could’ve been—a more elegant, more brutal exploration of love’s destructive power. Charli aimed for ‘elegant yet brutal,’ a phrase borrowed from John Cale’s Velvet Underground ethos, but too often, Wuthering Heights plays it safe. Did Charli hold back, or is this the album she was always meant to make?
Love, after all, is a dangerous game—but here, Charli seems to be playing by the rules. Wuthering Heights is no brat, but it’s not trying to be. Maybe that’s the point. What do you think? Is this album a missed opportunity, or a thoughtful detour in Charli’s ever-evolving career? Let’s debate in the comments.
